Whether through death, divorce or drugs, children experiencing loss offered chance to heal

A new support group will help children and teens who have lost a loved one to death, divorce, incarceration and drug abuse.

MUSKEGON, MI -- It didn’t take long for Laura Ecker to receive confirmation that there’s a need for more children’s grief counseling in the Muskegon area.

Just days after flyers about a new support group were sent to schools, counselors started calling for more information, said Ecker, coordinator of grief and loss support for Mercy VNS -- Hospice.

The Footsteps program, which will start a six-week session the first week of October, is designed to help school-age children experiencing the loss of a loved one, whether it’s from death, divorce, imprisonment or even drug abuse, Ecker said.

“This Footsteps group really came about because through some community assessments we saw there’s a huge need for grief counseling for children,” Ecker said. “That seemed to be an area that was really lacking.”

Then the calls started coming in from school counselors.

“I think (school counselors) are overwhelmed with what’s going on in their schools,” she said. “So many schools are cutting back on counseling services. They’re overwhelmed.”

Footsteps will divide children, from first through 12th grades, according to age into groups of up to eight. Initial sessions will begin the first week of October for third- through fifth-graders and sixth- through eighth-graders.

GRIEF SUPPORT

• What: Footsteps children's grief counseling groups.

• Who: Provided by Mercy VNS -- Hospice for school-age children and teens.

• When: A group for third- through fifth-graders will start Oct. 3 and will meet Wednesdays from 6-7:30 p.m. A group for sixth- through eighth-graders will start Oct. 4 and meet Thursdays from 6-7:30 p.m. Groups meet for six weeks.

• Information: For more information or to register, call Laura Ecker at (231) 720-5348.

Children will share their feelings through group conversations as well as art and other activities, Ecker said. Cost is $5 to cover the cost of supplies, though no one will be turned away because of an inability to pay, she said.

“Children really do grieve a lot differently than adults do,” Ecker said. “They tend to grieve in what I call bursts. Kids move in and out of their feelings rather than maintain one feeling or emotion for a long period like adults do.”

And that’s part of the reason for the lack of children’s grief services, she said. Because children can be very sad one day and their normal happy selves the next, adults can mistakenly believe they are “over it, or they’re fine,” Ecker said.

When adults don’t seek help for grieving children, there doesn’t seem to be a demand and services aren’t developed.

But failing to properly support grieving children also can set them up for a lifetime of struggle, she said.

Children “almost always” experience guilt when they lose a loved one – that they somehow could have prevented the loss, Ecker said.

“Children personalize everything,” she said. “(That guilt) stays with them for life if they don’t deal with it.”

The hope is to eventually divide Footsteps groups according to type of loss in addition to age, Ecker said. But no matter how the loss occurs, children share common core feelings, she said.

“Grieving children usually feel very different and alone from other kids,” Ecker said. “They don’t realize other children are struggling too.”